


A Bug, a Cat, and a Plate-Glass Window

by GalahadWilder



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Actual Ladybug Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Crack, Established Relationship, F/M, Humor, Miraculous Tendencies, Oneshot, Post Reveal, ladybug tendencies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder
Summary: Springtime has come, and with it, pollen count is rising. That means that Marinette—thanks to her connection to the Ladybug Miraculous—is getting very, VERY loopy.Adrien has to mind his poor girlfriend, protecting her from bugs, flowers, and... plate-glass windows, apparently?
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 39
Kudos: 539





	A Bug, a Cat, and a Plate-Glass Window

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Totographs zine.

“And with that,” Alya says, opening her desk drawer and handing Adrien a child’s plastic police badge, “I hereby pass my position of ‘Official Marinette Wrangler’ to you.”

Adrien, confused, leans forward on Alya’s beanbag chair, and gingerly takes the badge between his fingers. “This is… adorable,” he says, hanging it between two fingers. “But, uh…” He looks at Alya. “Official Marinette Wrangler?”

This isn’t the first time Adrien’s been in Alya’s bedroom, but it’s still a little weird. He’s used to other people’s rooms being smaller than his, but his experience with non-Agreste homes, prior to this year, was limited pretty much to Chloé, Marinette, and on a few rare occasions, Nino: mostly wealthier only children. He’s been getting out more lately, since his father has been preoccupied with Nathalie’s health, and the more time he spends in his other classmates’ rooms, the more he’s realizing that his perceptions of what a normal Parisian living space is are a bit… skewed. Alya’s bedroom can barely even fit Marinette’s  _ bed _ in it.

Alya smirks, turning back to her computer. “Okay, so you know how you get really…” Her fingers fly across the keyboard with a  _ clackclackclackclack _ , opening the familiar front page of the  _ Ladyblog _ and, with two clicks, opening a video of Chat Noir purring and leaning scalp-first into Ladybug’s scratching fingers. “...cat-like when you’re emotional?”

Adrien, embarrassed, runs his hand through his hair, feeling for phantom ears. He’s still a little ashamed of how easy it is to make him melt at a touch, especially one from his Lady—but luckily for his dignity, he knows that Alya has a similar shame that never made it onto her blog. “Yeah,” he says, carefully maintaining a friendly tone of  _ I’m just bringing up another example and this is not mocking you at all _ , “and you sometimes try and chase birds when you’re excited.”

Alya slams her fingers on the spacebar, pausing the video, and fires a glare in his direction that packs the full weight of the explosive fervor that fuels her journalism. “ _ We don’t mention that, _ ” she hisses.

Adrien shrugs, careful to maintain an air of innocence, specifically  _ I can’t possible conceive of what it is that you’re mad at me about, i Amn just a litle creacher _ . “I’m just saying I get it,” he says. “Miraculous behavior bleed.” He leans forward, bracing his chin against his hand and his elbow against his knee. “But I figured that was more of a mammal thing. I’ve never seen  _ her _ do any of that—”

Alya cuts him off with a snort. “You weren’t there  _ last _ spring.” She turns back to her computer. “Or at least, you didn’t know who she was.” She makes a few clicks and opens a folder labeled “Marinette Blackmail Material.” “How did you think I figured out she was Ladybug?”

Adrien raises an eyebrow. “I… thought you just… did journalism?” Marinette had never actually  _ told _ him how Alya had discovered her identity—he’d assumed the journalist had pieced together hints from slip-ups Marinette had made over the years.

Alya giggles. “Sure, I ‘did journalism’,” she says. She clicks on a file labeled  _ bugbug1 _ . “Spring comes, pollen counts go up, and she gets… really loopy.”

The screen fills with a video of Marinette—his Marinette, and oh cats his heart still squeezes at the sight of her, at the  _ thought _ of her—at the park, kneeling on a picnic blanket in her favorite yellow sundress. The spring breeze is playing enchantingly through her inky hair, contrasting the dandelion between her fingers and giving her the air of a living impressionist painting. She’s so beautiful.

Then, she carefully picks something off the stem of the flower—some kind of black dot—and places it between her teeth with a look of bliss.

“Did she just... eat an aphid?” Adrien says, stunned.

“Yyyyep,” Alya says as the video continues rolling. “I only pulled out my camera because that was, like, the fifth one. She kept doing it for a full minute before she noticed.”

“Noticed she was doing it, or noticed you filming her?”

“Both, I think.” Alya clicks again, pausing the video, and swivels in her chair to face Adrien, her fingers steepled. “Her behaviors are rare as long as she has the energy to stay on top of things, but when she gets stressed and tired? She starts acting as much like a bug as you do like a cat.”

Adrien swallows, mentally counting out the days in the calendar. “Stressed and tired? Um, so—”

“I see you counting, Sunshine,” Alya says. “You’re right—the Esmod application deadline is this week, so she’s never been more stressed or tired in her  _ life _ .” She reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder. “So it’s  _ your _ job to make sure she doesn’t walk into a bus or something,  _ loverboy. _ ”

Adrien’s heart drops. “Fun,” he croaks.

* * *

Normally, walking the streets of Paris with Marinette’s hand in his is fun. He’s only recently started being allowed to get out, and he’s still getting used to walking around outside without a leather suit on. It’s been a couple of months, but he’s still internally thrilled by publicly being Marinette’s boyfriend, so her hand in his always makes his stomach tingle in nervous excitement. Besides, it’s a beautiful spring day, pigeons or no pigeons, and flowers across the city are blooming in riotous color.

But the flowers are half the problem, and they keep reminding him of what Alya told him. And, much as he wants to enjoy his day out, he keeps flinching a little bit at every bus that zooms by, internally freaking out at the image that Alya planted in his head.

After the fourth one, Marinette shoots him a questioning look. “You’re freaking out, Kitty,” she says. “Everything okay at home?”

“Uh, yeah, fine,” he says, staring after the retreating bus that had come, in his opinion, entirely too close to the sidewalk.

Marinette stares at him, and he can see the gears turning in her head. They’re a little slower than usual, he thinks, given her stress and her lack of sleep—then her eyes narrow and she slaps her forehead. “Oh, Lord,” she grumbles. “She gave you the badge.”

Adrien double-takes. “You  _ know _ about that?”

“Know about that?” Marinette laughs. “She’s been holding that video over my head for a  _ year _ .” She pokes him in the shoulder with a sleepily exasperated smile. “She practically  _ blackmailed _ me into confessing to you.”

Adrien grins, letting a little bit of Chat bleed through—he’s gotten more comfortable with that lately. “Remind me to thank her, then,” he says.

Marinette smacks his shoulder with the back of her hand. It has quite a bit less force than usual. “Dick,” she says.

Adrien catches her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it. “ _ Your _ dick,” he says, looking up at her through hooded eyes. “ _ Forever _ .”

Marinette giggles. “Oh no,” she murmurs, ruffling his hair with her free hand. “I guess I’m stuck with you.”

“A terrible fate,” Adrien agrees.

Marinette smiles, before turning back to the sidewalk and tugging him along. “Anyway, I’m not  _ that _ bad,” she says, immediately contradicting herself with a slight waver in her walk. “Alya’s overreacting.” She sighs, coming to a halt and pressing a finger to her chin. “I should throw a live chicken at her or something.”

“I’m pretty sure that counts as assault with a deadly weapon,” Adrien says. “Chickens are  _ mean _ .”

Marinette tilts her head toward him with an incredulous look. “ _ Most  _ of us are smart enough not to pick a  _ fight _ with them, you idiot cat.”

He’s about to respond, when suddenly a tiny black dot zips across his field of vision—and more importantly, Marinette’s. He glances at her, concerned, and sees her pupils the size of dinner plates, staring into the street where the bug vanished.

“ _ Bug _ ,” she whispers, entranced.

“Okay,” Adrien says, tugging on her hand. “This is exactly why Alya was afraid you’d walk into a bus.”

* * *

Marinette’s favorite art supply shop,  _ Everard’s Art Supplies, _ is a lovely little rustic hole-in-the-wall with an 18th Century storefront, complete with wooden door and bay windows and slightly dusty shelves. Everard’s, unfortunately, is closed for renovation after a small fire caused by a cigarette flicked by a careless patron—but Marinette’s worn down her designing pencils and she only has a few more days until her designs need to be complete for Esmod, so they’re going somewhere else, somewhere that they’re both a little less familiar with.  _ Brush to Canvas _ lacks Everard’s charm, Adrien can see that from even a block away—the plate-glass windows stretch from street to ceiling, stacked high with plastic displays of acrylics and dress forms covered in scraps of fabric.

Adrien breathes a sigh of relief as they approach the shop—they’re away from the street, meaning there’s far less chance of Marinette wandering into it.  _ And _ they’re right next to a bus stop, so they’re gonna be slowing down here. He’s gonna have to be careful again when they leave, of course, but for right now he can relax.

Marinette immediately proves him wrong by turning 5 feet early and walking face-first into the plate-glass window.

_ Bonk _ .

“Ow!” Marinette yelps, stumbling backwards. She rubs her nose, glaring at the window. “Automatic doors,” she grumbles. “Bane of my existence.” She jabs the finger of her free hand toward the window. “You’re worse than Hawkmoth, you know that?” she hisses—at the window.

Adrien glances at her, at the window, at her, at the window. Checks for the sensor, for a gap, for a rolling track, for  _ anything _ that might have tipped her off that this was a door and not a window, but finds nothing. This isn’t a door, automatic or otherwise. His brilliant, strong, beautiful girlfriend just… walked into a window.

“Bug, honey,” he says, squeezing her hand. “That’s—that’s not a door.”

She shoots him an exasperated  _ look _ —the one that usually means “stop punning, Kitty, this is serious.” “Of course it is,” she says. “Here, watch.”

She steps forward and, predicitably, proceeds to bonk fruitlessly against the (decidely  _ non _ -door) glass. “Ow!” she cries again.

“Babe?” Adrien says, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb. “Are you okay?”

She grits her teeth, rubbing her nose again. “Fine,” she says. “Just  _ really annoyed _ at the concept of automatic doors.” She sighs, laying her head on his shoulder. “This is New York all over again.”

“No, it  _ isn’t _ ,” Adrien protests. “The—the door is right there, sweetie.” He points five feet to the left, where the actual shop door is located.

Marinette, heedless, picks up her head again—and he can see, now, how wide her pupils are as she takes another step forward… and once again, walks straight into the floor-to-ceiling window. “Ow!”

Oh. She’s—she’s doing a bug thing, isn’t she.

This is going to get awkward.

He grabs her shoulders, trying to hold her back, trying to steer her to the left. “Come on, Mari,” he says. “It’s right—”

She yanks herself out of his hands and steps forward again. “I’ve got this, Kitty,” she mumbles, her voice kind of spacey.

“Oh, no,” Adrien says, as his girlfriend once more bashes her head against the glass.

The actual door opens, and a young man in his mid-twenties wearing an apron with the  _ Brush to Canvas _ logo emblazoned on it bursts out, his head swiveling in confusion. His eyes light on Marinette and Adrien, and he blinks a few times as Marinette walks into the window again.

“Madameoiselle!” he says. “Please stop attempting to… um…” He flounders, clearly lost as to what’s happening, as to what this strange girl is actually trying to do.

“Enter through the window?” Adrien supplies.

“Yes!” the man says, pointing. “That.”

Marinette turns to the man with an expression of sleepy fury. “Yer... automatic door won’ open,” she slurs. “Kinda store is this?”

The man blinks. “That’s—Madameoiselle, that’s not a door,” he says.

Adrien shrugs. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her,” he says, grabbing fruitlessly at his girlfriend’s arm as she slips his grip once more and walks straight into the window with a  _ clonk _ .

The man looks at Adrien, eyes wild. “What’s going on?” he says.

Adrien wraps his arms around Marinette’s torso, holding her in place. “Seasonal allergies,” he says. “Um… she took some benadryl?”

“Oh,” the man says, placated, as if this explained everything. (And, to be fair, it kind of did—or at least, it would to anyone else. She was  _ fine _ just seconds ago—why is she going wibbly  _ now? _ )

Adrien looks around. “You wouldn’t happen to have… um…” He trails off as his eyes take in the shopfront right next to  _ Brush to Canvas _ —a riotous splash of colors, plastic, and petals sequestered behind more glass. The shop next door is a  _ flower shop. _

Pollen count. No  _ wonder _ Marinette’s suddenly loopy.

“Nevermind,” he says. “I’m just—I’m gonna bring her inside. Do you have somewhere she can sit?”

“Gonna fight the door,” she mumbles.

He nuzzles her head, keenly aware of the reversal of their usual dynamic. “Please don’t fight the door, Ma Souris,” he murmurs, bracing with his stomach and thighs and hefting her about an inch of the ground.

She wiggles indignantly in his arms. “How’d you get—so strong?” she mumbles, trying to twist her head to look at him. “Do you have Sass on you?”

“Hugging practice,” he says, carting her through the door that the cashier is graciously holding open for them.

He puts Marinette down just inside the front entrance. “Okay, can you—can you sit down near the registers for me?” he says.

Marinette doesn’t respond. Instead, she’s staring, wide-eyed, at a shelf full of paints. “Colorful...” she says. “Tasty bugs?”

“I’ll take that as a no,” he says, tugging her away from the shelf. “Please don’t eat the paints.” He’s struck by how much he sounds like her in that moment— _ Kitty, please don’t eat the [x] _ is practically one of Ladybug’s catchphrases at this point. She sounds really,  _ really  _ high.

He plants her at the register, next to the still very confused cashier. “Can you watch her for a minute?” he says. “She needs new drawing pencils, but I’m not sure she’s coherent enough to come with me.”

“I, uh, sure,” he says.

“Thanks,” Adrien says. He looks in Marinette’s eyes. “Bugaboo,” he says, “I need you to stand  _ right there _ until I come back, okay?”

Her puppy eyes meet his. “Okay, Kitty,” she says.

* * *

He’s fairly certain he knows which pencils Mari likes—there’s a specific brand she favors, from what he can remember, but there’s like eight different  _ kinds _ of pencil in that brand, and he can’t remember which one is the one she uses, and then there are the ones his dad prefers which are a completely different (and far more expensive) brand, and he can’t tell whether Marinette likes those pencils because they’re better or because they’re cheaper, she usually goes for quality when she can but she also tends to go for cheaper fabrics because she’d blow through her commission in like a week if she bought everything she wanted and Adrien actually has a fair amount of money on-hand, so should he get the nicer ones or…?

That’s when the cashier cries out “Madamoiselle!” and Adrien’s cat-fine instincts immediately jump to  _ Mari is in trouble must protect. _ He sweeps as many of the boxes off the shelves as he can fit into his arms and bolts for the front.

Marinette is on the ground, in a sort of sitting kneel, staring through the glass of the counter at what appears to be some sort of fly on the inside of it. Her hands are pressed against the glass, and they keep slapping slapping slapping wherever the fly jumps to.

“Cmere fly,” Marinette grumbles. “Stupid—stupid air, lemme at the fly.”

Adrien dumps the pencil boxes on the counter. “How much for all of these?” he says, breathless, reaching for his girlfriend and tugging her gently away from the glass, and the fly.

“Uh,” the cashier says, his eyes flicking between Adrien, Marinette, and the pile of pencil boxes on the counter. “Um, that’s—how many do you have?”

“Good question,” Adrien says.

They quickly scan all the boxes—turns out there’s twelve of them—while Adrien attempts to hold his salivating girlfriend back from the fly. The price pops up on the screen, showing 65.83 Euro.

Adrien whips out his credit card, keeping Marinette in his field of vision. “I’ll need a receipt, please,” he says.

“Of course,” the cashier says, also not taking his eyes off of Marinette.

Not that helps, when Marinette makes an excited, incomprehensible noise of the kind he hasn’t heard since before they were dating, and yanks her arm out of Adrien’s grip, dashing out of the store with a jingle of entrance bells.

“Oh,  _ hell _ ,” Adrien breathes, dropping his card  _ and _ the as-yet-unpaid-for pencils and charging out after her.

He barely makes it through the door before he realizes what she’s chasing: a bus has just pulled up to the stop outside of the store, one with an advertisement for the zoo’s new insect exhibit plastered across the side. Marinette dives toward the gigantic cricket decal, smacking her face into the metal and rebounding off into Adrien’s arms.

She whines, pouting. “Cricket,” she says, flailing ineffectually toward the gigantic .

Adrien stares at her. “Unbelievable,” he says, caught somewhere between  _ this is so annoying _ and  _ this is so cute _ . “You… you  _ actually walked into a bus. _ ”

Marinette buries her flushed, reddening face in the crook of his shoulder. “Don’t tell Alya,” she whines.

Adrien smirks. “Oh, Buggy,” he says, tweaking her nose, “there’s no stopping that now.”


End file.
